Front Lines

Defend, Conserve, and Protect African Coastal Waters

Sea Shepherd’s mission to defend, conserve, and protect our oceans around the world has brought us to the new front line in marine conservation: the fight against illegal fishing in Africa. Since Sea Shepherd’s first partnership with Gabon in 2016, our recurring campaigns have grown to include a total of eight African coastal states, with plans to further expand our efforts where needed to succeed in eradicating the scourge of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

Sea Shepherd is working with national authorities and regional partners to combat IUU fishing, and fisheries crime, in African waters and is now fighting to preserve marine wildlife off of Central and South America. Successful campaigns have already been conducted in partnership with authorities in Gabon, São Tomé & Príncipe, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Benin, The Gambia, Namibia and Tanzania.

How We Help Combat Illegal Fishing

The key to stopping IUU fishing is monitoring, control, and surveillance – especially the enforcement of existing laws and regulations protecting marine wildlife, people and the environment. However, many African coastal and island states do not currently have offshore patrol vessels that can cover the entirety of their waters. Sea Shepherd is the only organization providing civilian offshore patrol vessels (COPVs) so that authorities from partner countries can enforce fisheries and conservation laws in their sovereign waters.